Last Writes with… The Ghost Maidens

The premise of LAST WRITES is simple. Our guests face their final rest, but before Death claims them they are granted a few parting earthly pleasures, the memories of which will travel with them into the great unknown. What makes these questions appealing and insightful for me is that these are not necessarily our guests favorite things, but those they most want to experience one last time before they shuffle off this mortal coil.

TODAY’S DEPARTING:

THE GHOST MAIDENS

How best to describe the Ghost Maidens, Rose and Sybil? They are two campy and wacky e-girls who are hilariously entertaining. Hailing from the Netherlands, I stumbled upon these would be Mistresses of the Dark when they were guests of paranormalist Aaron Sager and thought they were a breath of fresh air. They are all over social media — twitch, twitter, instagram, and the like. Visit their website, theghostmaidens.com (naturally) for all the appropriate links. You can thank me later.

These ladies are no strangers to what awaits them in the hereafter and so we need not tarry as we prepare them for their finale rest… but first, their Last Writes.

ROSE NOCTURNE 

LAST MEAL:

Knowing that it will be the last meal I will ever eat, I probably won’t have much of an appetite, so I will have to go for the thing that I am always able to eat, which are salty potato chips. I would want to eat a full bag of potato chips. For this very last time I don’t have to worry about the crumbs so I will just let them land on me or around me without trying to keep it clean––and maybe I never even have kept it clean, ask Sybil.

LAST BOOK: 

To be completely honest, I am not going to waste my last moments on Earth reading a book. Why fill the suitcase of my mind with more weight on a journey where I can’t take anything with me? The only books I have truly enjoyed reading are steamy novels full of romantic cliches, but these books are not worth reading twice; they were just to pass the time or feed to some primal longing (I highly recommend Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts). What I would much rather do is write a book, that’s a literary direction I have always been more comfortable with. 

LAST MOVIE: 

What does it say about me that I would probably choose to watch some contemporary reality dating show? Not only because it would make it easier to leave this world behind, but also because, for me, reality shows and dating shows in particular are the most accurate artifact of the contemporary human state and are a perfect sample of the culture I had been a part of all my life. It would be the most endearing “hate watch” of a lifetime. I would cringe, shed a tear and just like the show I am watching, vanish into oblivion. 

LAST SONG:

It’ll most likely be a sad country song. Something sad with chords I know how to play on my guitar. Maybe even Townes van Zandt. I will sing along with it and I will try to look for the harmonies and sing the second voice. I haven’t found a thing in this world more soothing than singing and it is very possible that my last words will be in song. 

FIRST PERSON YOU’D LIKE TO MEET ON THE OTHER SIDE:

That one is easy: John Dee. I need him to tell me about his collaboration with Edward Kelly and the angels that came through in the Enochian language during their scrying sessions. Were they scary? Did they become friends? Did he like Edward Kelly or was he just a crazy person he had to work with? How old were these angels? How did they make sense of the messages? Where can I find these angels myself? Were they interdimensional? What was his relationship with Queen Elizabeth? I have often fantasized about writing a play or a movie about the workroom of John Dee and Edward Kelly where they communicated with angels about the order of reality. Maybe I will before I die. If not, after. Then I can write it in Enochian and cast actual angels for the human roles. 

SYBIL EERIE

LAST MEAL:

Sybil: I’d probably also have to agree with Rose in not having much an appetite, so for me it’s just gonna have to also be a potato based choice: a very specific lumpy parmesan mashed potato from a place I used to work at many years ago that I used to covet after a work shift, drizzled with a little bit of sriracha. It’s enough to coat my stomach and keep me full and satisfied and not thinking about my uncomfortable mortal prison until the end. 

LAST BOOK:

I take no comfort in books, especially reading under time pressure. If I can’t focus on reading them now, there’d be absolutely no way I’d be able to focus on words on a page knowing my eventual demise is certain and soon. The reason I read is not necessarily out of enjoyment, but out of a thirst for knowledge for the living future and how to think in more interesting ways, but that applies only to life and not to death. I think reading is something you do when you know you have a lot of time to dedicate to the things you learned from it. I’m pretty sure that in my last days I’d be more focused on creating rather than consuming. That’s my eternal need I think. Production until the last possible moment that allows it. The undying will to leave something behind that you made. For most people it’s the legacy of their genetics and children. I think for artists in whatever form; it’s themselves they leave behind. I’d make photographs, paintings, drawings, and writings, or anything I could get a hold of. That would be the thing I would be the most concerned with. 

LAST MOVIE:

I’m not sure. I’d either pick something reliably comedic, or I’d opt for something new and popular on Netflix or a Hallmark movie in order to rest assured that mostly everything new and produced for the masses sucks terribly “and they don’t make ’em like they used to” which would actually give me some annoyed peace in which to leave this world. Contrarily, picking something inspiring, artistic and poetic is actually more stressfully stimulating for a person like me, rather than picking something easy and bad which gives comfort and relief. It needs to be something that reminds me life is a big joke and death is the punchline.

LAST SONG:

A thousand miles from nowhere by Dwight Yoakam. Just a simple love song. Nothing too melancholic. 

FIRST PERSON YOU’D LIKE TO MEET ON THE OTHER SIDE:

I’d meet my dogs. If they are there waiting in the afterlife, then surely it is a good place that has a lot more to offer. 

Huge thanks to Sybil and Rose for joining us in the Occult Detective Mortuary. They are a lot of fun and I recommend you check out their Elvira-esque performances.

Please remember to tune in each Wednesday as we raise up another departed guest on our hypothetical funeral pyre so that they might express their Last Writes. See you next week.